


Dave works at olive garden HA

by Sachete



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5704627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachete/pseuds/Sachete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honestly, you should have seen it coming, but that doesn't make it any less hilarious. And awkward. Yeah, it's kinda awkward, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dave works at olive garden HA

The waiters at your local chain “Italian” restaurant which will not be named have probably dealt with a lot of shit. Like, you can’t even fathom the insane amount of steaming shit every soul employed at that franchise probably has to deal with, which is why when you hate yourself more than usual and find yourself in one of these Ameritalian monstrosities munching on another basket of bottomless oil-and-salt-and-garlic-flavored packing foam wands with your creepy juggalo of a former boyfriend and struggling to distinguish one pile of slop as being more desirable than the rest of the equally off-putting piles of slop on the sticky menu one afternoon, you are simultaneously filled with a sense of queasiness and amusement when none other than Dave motherfucking Strider waltzes up to the table with a forced smile on his face and a black apron around his waist.

Post-high school, you didn’t know where the guy would end up, and didn’t care. You figured he’d go to college or something, get out of town, away from the abusive brother he always denied but everyone knew existed, and yet here he is. You see scabs on his knuckles when he takes out a notepad to scribble your order.

“Afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Dave and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with an appetizer?” Acting like he’s never met you. That’s not gonna fly.

“Actually, I’d like a wine list, please.” You’re trying not to grin, really, but it’s too good an opportunity to pass up teasing the guy. Gamzee doesn’t notice your quip and looks pretty stoned (you should have thought of that—weed’s probably the only way this food’s bearable). You have to enjoy your wit alone.

Dave pauses and looks like he’s about to say something like “cut the shit, Karkat; we both know you’re not legal,” but he holds back and keeps the smile plastered. Impressive. “I’ll need to see your ID.”

“Just a joke, man. Pretty good to see you’re still alive and all. How’ve you been?”

“Better, Vantas. Been better.” He nods at Gamzee and talks like he isn’t there. And you guess he isn’t, really. “You’re still with Makara?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

It’s as if the whole restaurant goes quiet, but you know that doesn’t really happen. Your ears are just ringing a little.

Dave twirls the pen and doesn’t make eye contact. “So, uh, are you guys still deciding or what? I can come back in a few.”

“You guys don’t have Faygo,” Gamzee drawls in his stupor. “I wanted me some Faygo, man.”

“We don’t have Faygo, Makara. Do you wanna refill on your Sprite?” Dave asks, looking at Gamzee’s untouched glass.

“I want Faygo.”

“Chicken parm for both of us,” you say in a rush. “And uh. More breadsticks. I guess.”

“Breadsticks. Yeah, fuckin’ breadsticks. Get summore of those, those are amazing.”

Dave raises his eyebrows at you but writes the order down. “…Right. Two of the chicken parmigiana and another basket of breadsticks.” He takes up the menus and you get a closer look at the scabs. Some are old. Some have opened up. He’s been picking at them. “I’ll get those right out.”

“Thanks.”

He walks back to the kitchen and you absolutely do not check out his ass as he goes, no sir, but even in his drug-addled state, Gamzee knows what’s up.

“You still liiiike him.”

“Holy shit. What are you, seven?

“Give him your number. Romance that sunovabitch.”

“No!”

“It’s a miracle you two get to meet again after all this time.” He says it slow-like while wetting the straw wrappers in the sweat gathered on the glasses and rolling the paper into little balls between his fingers. “This is God giving you another chance. It’s a motherfucking sign.”

“Your god’s a crock of shit, and so are you. We live in the same town, for fuck’s sake. It was only a matter of time before we saw each other. Frankly, the miracle here is that I haven’t even thought of him until just now.” You sip your water and gnaw at a stub of packing foam, priming your face for future frown lines. “Why do we even go here?”

“It’s good and cheap.”

“No, it’s not. We could be eating actual Italian food down the street at Bella’s.”

“They don’t have breadsticks,” Gamzee argues, and plucks the oily paper from the empty basket and starts to lick it.

“No, you’re right. They have garlic knots.”

“Shit,” he says with his tongue out. “What are we doing here?”

“According to you, getting my flirt on with Strider and fulfilling some miraculous homo prophecy.”

“Oh, yeah.” Gamzee crumples up the licked-clean paper lining and puts it in the empty basket, then wipes his hands on his pants. How did you ever date this guy? “How’s that going, by the way?”

The restaurant isn’t busy or anything. It’s actually pretty empty, it being three in the afternoon and all, and so Dave’s back in no time with two plates of rubber covered in red sauce and grated toe jam, and also another basket of packing foam.

“Here ya go, fellas. Enjoy. Let me know if you need anything else.” Thinking about it now, Dave’s probably perfect for this job, probably gets a kick out of being so disingenuously polite, probably laughs at every low-life in here who thinks he’s being sincere. Or maybe he hates it with every fiber of his being, burning at the blue-hot intensity of a thousand short-lived main-sequence stars. You don’t feel sorry for him at all.

You realize Gamzee’s not gonna be polite and answer, so you thank Dave and he gives you a weird look before going to check on another table. Damn him.

“Did you see that? What the hell was that look? Do I have something on my face?” Damn him. Damn him to hell.

“You’re getting all worked up over nothing, man. He’s just as nervous as you. Relax.” He twirls some strings of carbohydrate around his fork and slurps noisily, not swallowing before speaking next. “It’s fate. It’ll all go good.” Some pasta falls out of his mouth. Goddamn, how did you ever date this guy?

You’re suddenly not very hungry anymore, but you take a few bites of the rubber while Gamzee goes to town on his entrée. Dave comes back a few times to refill your water, and you mumble thanks to him but otherwise go quiet when he gets close. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn him showing up outta nowhere and doing this.

“Chill the fuck out, man. He’s totally into you. Ya’ll got history. Just leave him your number on a napkin.”

“The history is precisely the reason this won’t work, and also why he has my number already.” Unless he deleted it, you don’t say, like you did with his. But then he could have memorized it, also like you did with his. Five one two, three two eight, thirty-five twenty-eight, god, how do you still remember it?

“If you don’t, then I’ll do it for ya.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Hey man, I got ya covered.” He retrieves a pen from the nest he calls hair and uncaps it with a flourish, scrawling a barely legible sequence of numbers onto the back of one of those religious tracts he keeps in his wallet to leave as tips instead of actual fucking money, the asshole. (How the FUCK did you ever date this guy?) He turns it over to the front and puts it in front of you. “You’re still shy. I get it.”

“I’m not shy, you rusty sewage pipe.”

“Um.” Dave’s got a white Styrofoam box (would it taste better than the breadsticks?) and the check. Fuck fuck fuck. How much did he hear? “Do you want a box for that?” He’s pointing at your plate, which is still full of pasta. “Or like, dessert?”

The thought of eating the carb strings after they’ve been refrigerated and reheated again makes you want to vomit, and you shake your head. “No. Just the check.”

“I’ll get that, Karkat.”

“Please don’t.”

“Nah, really. My treat.”

“For the love of god–”

He has the check. Doesn’t let me look at it before slipping exact change inside and handing it back to Dave, who taps the pseudo-leather folder against his thigh.

“No dessert, then?”

“Nah, we good. Cool seein’ ya again, brother. Nice surprise. We’ll come back to see ya soon. Right, Karkat?”

You don’t try to force a smile because you don’t wanna scare the guy, but you do kinda stop frowning so hard. “Yeah. Good to see you, Dave.”

“Motherfuckin’ miracles and togetherness,” says Gamzee. “I love this shit.” He does this slow blink (you realize that you never noticed him blink throughout the entire meal, actually) and stands up. “Gotta piss.”

“Bathroom’s that way.”

“Cool, thanks. Hey Karkat, tip the good man, man.”

And then he’s gone, and you’re left looking up at Dave who is looking down at you expectantly, and you fumble for words and your wallet. “Um, how much was the check? I didn’t see.”

“It’s about 35 bucks.”

“Okay.” You’re scrambling with mental math and trying to remember how much you should tip, if this was considered on-par service, above-average, maybe, or would Dave expect more since you knew each other? Less? You end up forking out a five and like three dollars in quarters and dimes.

“Did Gamzee wanna give me that, too?” He’s looking at the tract. The tract with your number on it.

“Um.”

“Better take it. You know what happens when people aren’t “open-minded” about his shit or whatever.” He grabs the tract and puts it with his tip. If he sees the number, he doesn’t react.

An older woman in the restaurant uniform sweeps by, and Dave stiffens. “Thank you for dining with us,” he says louder, scripted. “We hope you come again soon.”

You snicker and take that as your cue to leave. Gamzee meets you outside soon after.

“So, how’d it go? Tell me you gave him your number.”

“I gave him my number.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Gamzee goes quiet stares out at the parking lot for a while and shrugs. “Oh well. Guess that’s how it was supposed to go. Sorry, man. I thought–”

“Don’t apologize to me.”

“–I thought this could be your chance, yanno? I was really prayin’ for ya in there.”

“Yeah. Well. It didn’t work.”

* * *

hey

uh

it was good to see you today

but anyway

here i am

texting you

in case it wasnt obvious this is dave btw

am i still in your contacts?

i guess text me back or something man

cuz it actually was pretty nice

i guess

seeing you again that is

today

good to see youre doing alright

maybe we could catch up sometime

and uh

yeah

text me

SO YOU GOT THE TRACT?

tract?

THAT WAS GAMZEE’S FAULT.

wait what

what about the tract

was there something important on it or something

like aside from gamzees creepy cultist propaganda or whatever

cuz i threw that shit away

OH

do you want me to fish it outta the garbage

does it have a secret code on it to activate a nuclear missile or something

directions for dismantling the bomb you planted under the olive garden in a fit of rage at the franchise for bastardizing your ancestors food

are you part of a cult of italians whose goal is to organize this simultaneous explosion of olive gardens across the nation

spaghetti will rain from the sky in soggy carbohydrate rich ribbons

breadstick shrapnel will kill thousands of innocent bystanders

but then you saw i work there and had a change of heart you soft bastard and gave me the instructions to dismantle the bomb because you didnt have the heart to directly betray your cult

but if even one olive garden survives the rest will rise up from the ashes

you ruined the mission for everyone else

goddammit karkat you had one job

HOLY SHIT SHUT UP.

NO.

NONE OF THAT STUFF.

then what was it

NOTHING. IT’S NOT IMPORTANT.

okie dokie artichokie

whatever you say

but if theres a pasta explosion tomorrow and i get impaled by a ricocheted breadstick my death is on your hands

death by breadstick

the most gruesome of deaths

hey karkat

WHAT.

i missed talking to you

YEAH.

ME TOO.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr.](http://sachete.tumblr.com)


End file.
